Fairfield woman faces new drug charge in hubby-handcuffing case

Published 5:23 pm, Thursday, September 10, 2009

BRIDGEPORT -- A new charge has been filed against a Fairfield woman accused of handcuffing her husband to herself to prevent him from leaving her.

Investigators now say that Helen Sun drugged her husband's Gatorade before the March incident.

Sun, meanwhile, is believed to currently be in California, where her husband moved following her arrest, according to police sources.

The 38-year-old was charged Wednesday with illegal distribution of a controlled substance. The charge is in addition to the pending charges of second-degree assault, third-degree assault, first-degree unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct. She is scheduled to appear Oct. 26 in Superior Court.

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On March 23, Sun was arrested at the Tunxis Hill Road home in Fairfield that she owned with her husband, Robert Drawbaugh, after police had to break down the door to free Drawbaugh, who was screaming for help.

Officers found the couple in the master bedroom, handcuffed to each other.

While Drawbaugh slept, police said, Sun changed the lock on the bedroom door so that it locked from the outside, and took her husband's cell phone and wallet. She then used handcuffs that she had purchased via the Internet to shackle her husband.

When Sun's husband awoke and discovered that he had been handcuffed to her, police said she replied: "You slept all day today now this is what we are going to do for the next day."

When Drawbaugh tried to escape, Sun bit him on the forehead, arms and chest, police said. Officers at the scene said they saw bite marks on Drawbaugh's body.

The Gatorade that Sun gave her husband to drink before she handcuffed him contained a controlled-substance, police said this week.

In a statement released Wednesday, Drawbaugh had told investigators his wife had previously assaulted him prior to the March handcuffing. Sun had pushed him down stairs, smashed his head into a concrete wall, broke a guitar over his head, choked him nearly unconscious and beat him over the head with a metal table leg, according to the statement.

The couple, married eight years, separated last December, but got back together after Sun began calling regularly and promising to change her ways, according to the statement. The couple spent several days together in Kennebunkport, Maine, and then resettled in their Fairfield home.